In our Democracy it looks Laws passed
by Parliament Need to be Ratified by Shaaheen Baghs & Jamias?
By Amba Charan Vashishth
It looks democracy in India is entering into a new phase
where laws passed by Parliament in a democratic manner will need to be ratified
by Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Islamia University hold-ups, violent protest
demonstrations at various places before
these can be put into the Statute Book for implementation.
Opposition
is a vital pillar of democracy. Its absence robs the very sheen of democracy.
Government and Opposition are not inimical to each other; they actually
complement each other. Just as all religions and faiths lead us to realizing
the Ultimate in their own way, in the same manner, both the ruling party and
the opposition have — and
should — the unity of thought and action to achieve the ultimate goal of public
weal and security of the nation. The
opposition voice needs to be heard and respected and not ignored or gagged
unless, of course, motivated by narrow political and electoral interests.
Political
parties in the country need also to understand that a council of ministers
headed by a prime minister is the government of India and not of the ruling party
or alliance they may belong to. Therefore, speaking for or against any member
of the council of ministers should not transgress the limits of decency.
Our political parties also need to respect the
people’s mandate. It has become a ritual for political parties to pre-empt
their likely failure by alleging immediately after the polling and before the
counting moment that electronic voting machines (EVMs) have been tampered with
and questioning the security where these had been stored till the day of counting.
For the Delhi assembly elections Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had done so in 2015
elections and this time in February 2020 elections. After their massive win — 67 in 2015 and 62 out of 70 last time) — they failed to congratulate
the Election Commission and EVMs for a free and elections. They should also
have regretted their wild and reckless allegations.
It
has been found that political parties try to compensate their loss of mandate
by being more aggressive and vociferous in putting hurdles in the path of the
ruling party to promote its vision of development and welfare of the
people.
Six
months back the NDA government at the Centre led by Shri Narender Modi entered
into its second tenure with a mandate stronger than the last one. It lost no time to aggressively launch upon
to fulfill the promises it made to the people of the country.
First it removed the “Temporary and
Transitional” Article 370 and 35-A of the
Constitution which for the last 72 years had been rendered almost ‘permanent’.
These Articles had discriminated against the people in the rest of the country
and even within the State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). This action has now
demolished the unnatural wall created by these very Articles to separate the
citizens of J&K from those in the rest of the country. Now J&K people
are as much proud citizens of the country as are of any other State of the
Union.
Further,
the Modi government amended the Citizens Act 1955 to give citizenship to those
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis who had been ill-treated,
harassed and persecuted in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan and, to save
their life, honour and freedom of worship, had sought refuge in their mother
country from which they got separated on account of the unfortunate Partition
of the country 72 years back. The sufferings of this population can be gauged
from the fact that Hindus after Partition constituted 12.9 percent of Pakistan population have now been
reduced to just 1.6 percent. In Bangladesh Hindu population according to 1951 census was
22.05 percent. It has been made to melt down to 8.5 percent. The percentage has gone down because of forced conversions
and persecution. The same is true of Sikhs, Christians, Parsees. The situation
in Afghanistan is more or less the same.
Another
ugly part of the Partition is that it did not provide for any mechanism to
administer justice to those who for the love of their land of birth preferred
to stay back in Pakistan and Bangladesh against the ethnic cleansing indulged
in by these Islamist governments. In 1951 Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart Liaqat Ali Khan did sign a Pact to
safeguard the interests of minorities in the two countries. (The present
Bangladesh was then known as East Pakistan.) While India implemented its part
of the Pact sincerely and honestly, Pakistan treated it just a paper worth
throwing into the dustbin.
For
political and electoral ends in view the political parties and individuals
opposed to the NDA are trying to make a great issue of a non-issue. PM Modi and
HM Amit Shah have from the day the bill was introduced in both houses of
Parliament been reiterating that CAA is not against Muslims in any way. The Act
provides for grant of citizenship to refugees from these countries and not to
snatch the citizenship to any minority, including Muslims already Indian
citizens. But anti-CAA elements continue to misguide the illiterate or
semi-literate gullible people by spreading a false canard. The most unfortunate
part is the attitude of literate students of some universities who can very
easily go through the provisions of this Act to ascertain reality. That they
are stoking fires of false propaganda certainly points to some ulterior motive.
Excluding
Muslims from the provisions of this Act is certainly not sinister but
practical. Can any sane person think of persecution of Muslim people in
Islamist countries on grounds of religion? It is as ridiculous as to say that
Christians could be persecuted on account of their faith in USA, Great Britain
and even in Vatican for their faith in Lord Christ and holy Bible. Or Muslims
could feel unsafe in UAE, Iran, Pakistan, etc and they flee to India for solace
and safety. If India allowed embracing Muslims from these countries, it could
only result in a flood of terrorists seeking asylum here in the garb of their
being tortured for being Muslims. Some NDA ministers, like Shri Nitin Gadkari,
have already said that India cannot be turned into a dharmshala for
refuge in this country.
No
one has prevented countries, like Pakistan and Malaysia to welcome with open
arms Muslim from other countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Afghanistan into their lands. They criticize India but don’t frame a policy in
their own countries for lack of which they criticize India.
Amendment to the Citizenship Act 1955
(CAA) was adopted following a democratic process, as any other enactment in the
past. After full discussion the opposition stressed on a division and the
amendment was carried with a comfortable majority with 311 in favour and 80 against in Lok Sabha and
125 for and 105 against in Rajya
Sabha.
What else could be the democratic process? How could then a section of the
opposition allege that democracy in the country has been/is being throttled?
The opposition of some political parties to
have a National Register of Citizens (NRC) also suffers from illogical
arguments and practice. A country’s population is the sum total of all the
families in a district and State. Every Indian citizen has a ration card which
gives full detail of his family members. Every member, almost, has a PAN card
and aadhaar card. Some have driving, gun licence and passport too. Some
people are spreading the canard that for NRC they will be required to give the
names of their father, mother, grandfather and place and date of birth also.
One wonders why providing this information should annoy and embarrass anybody.
This information is very basic to the identity of a person. Details of one’s
father-mother’s name, date and place of birth, name of the school and college,
educational qualifications, if employed or not, married or not, registration of
one’s marriage, number of children, religion, nationality, voter ID card and
much other information about self. Scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and OBCs
have to get of their belonging to their castes etc. to avail of the concessions
available to them. Then why should one feel hurt to disclose this information
for NRC?
NRC
will also do away with the practice of people having a number of voter IDs at a
number of places, bogus ration cards and figuring of a person’s name in a
number of ration cards at different places.
The
Ram-mandir-Babri masjid issue too stands resolved.
NDA
has succeeded in addressing these core issues with speed and sincerity.
Opposition feels rattled in its failure to block many such measures in a
democratic manner. Therefore, they have brought Shaahin Bagh hold-up and
unending strikes and blockades in some colleges and university campuses are
examples. News channels have shown that many of the protesters were hired
individuals who had come on the promise of daily wages. Some even did not know
for what purpose they had come. The Government has used utmost restraint. The
Supreme Court of India has also disapproved of the hold-ups causing untold
misery to the people whose passage has been blocked for the last about two
months.
The unending sit-ins and hold-ups certainly
point to an unfortunate situation that undermines democracy. It looks as if the
laws passed in a democratic manner in the two houses of State legislature and
in Parliament have to be subjected to ratification by the unruly mobs and
violent demonstrations before these are put in the statute book and
implemented. Which side will our
democracy drift then? ***
The writer is a Delhi-based political
analyst and commentator.
(Courtesy: SOUTH ASIA POLITICS MONTHLY)
